Punk Regionalism

Chris Slaughter has lived and played in the band Stinkyfinger in the Knoxville, Tennessee, punk scene. He'll be assembling notes and related links here to try and represent the peculiar nature of the Knoxville scene, and punk regionalism as a phenomenon.

Use the forum to get or keep the dialogue going and get your region represented. Ultimately, this page may provide a resource for understanding how punk has evolved differently (or similarly) in the isolated pockets of underground culture.

REGIONALISM FORUM:

JAPAN :: Posted by Robert Valiant on September 29, 2003:

I am 26 and have only the vaguest recollection of Union Jack badges and luminous odd socks to colour my memory of Punk in England in the eighties. A few years ago I moved to Japan where I too found the Tokyo Punk scene (the few times I went to live house concerts in Shinjuku) to be a place to meet diverse and interesting people. I went less because of my interest in the philosophy or even the music but mainly because I hate the alternative which would be the Westerner infested dance clubs of Roppongi and Shibuya. I listened to a few of the tapes I picked up in the clubs but never went as far as to dye and spike my hair. Firstly because I worked in a school at the time and it wouldn't have washed with the board of education and secondly because also think there is something vaguely hypocritical in trying too hard you show that you care that people know that you don't care what they think.

That is really the point of this [posting]. I have noticed recently (though it has been going on for a while) that there is a district in Tokyo (Harajuku) where there are shops that sell masses of Punk fashion and attire and the streets are full of people in the most fantastic punk get ups. But it is purely for show. The closest any seem to get to any concept of anarchy or nilhism is adolescent angst. And a pouty 'more punk than you' look to them.

Recently I have struck an unlikely friendship with a schoolgirl who claims to be Punk and in dress and music sense she is flawlessly so. But she doesn't understand the lyrics to the songs and spends most of her free time e-mailing and chatting on her mobile phone. I have tried to explain to her a few of the inconsistencies between her image and her character really because I want to understand the attraction of being a Punk in Japan. I wasn't soul searching in the Shinjuku live house and I would never call myself 'Punk' in anybody's definition of the word but I did make some friends who don't care what they or even I think of what it is to be a punk and have dead end boring jobs and ride knackered black mopeds drunk, without tax. Things which I consider to be evidence of a more genuine Punk philosophy.

I want to know though. [Has anyone] heard of anything that could be described as a Punk movement in Japan? The Japanese are slightly renowned for taking anything from electrical equipment to a religion and taking just the bits they want. I can only conclude that Punk exists in Japan only for show in the same way that a spoiler and twin exhaust make a car look as if it goes fast when on the inside it is gutless. On [PISS it says somewhere] that it is too difficult to say what Punk is but easy to say what it is not (or something like that. I can't find it again to quote it properly) but there must surely be aspects of Punk that are essential to it. I mean I made similar references to things like Union Jack badges and spiky hair. There are other things like Dr Martin boots and a hatred towards the police. You can attribute this to the inexpensiveness of DMs and anarchistic beliefs (if that is the right word). I am aware that my examples are arguably not central to the Punk movement at all but are there not certain things which are inescapably linked to all things Punk and from which we can deduce something more tangible as to what the central tenets of Punk are. I would like to know more in order to challenge these fashion punks occasionally. The best answer they can give is for me to piss off of course. I asked the girl in question if the knew that there was more to punk than the clothes and the music and she just replied; "I don't care. I love it. Mosh is exiting."

Would this be a reasonable adage to sum up Japanese Neo Punk?

LOS ANGELES :: Posted by Michael Filas on July 13, 2003:

Punk is by definition a disenfranchised form of art. Be it music, literature or art, it is always confined to distribution in the lower quarters of the system: smaller clubs, art house theatres, street distribution. That comes with the anti-establishment impulse in the work. Regionalism is thus a big part of punk. When I see films or books about punk, I often bristle at the ommision of the LA scene from the document, as if punk happened only in New York and London. Well, the more I look the more I find. My friend Chris Slaughter has begun introducing me to the whole Knoxville, TN, punk scene and also to the insane performance history of GG Allin, a divisive figure who defined the extreme edge of revulsion acted out in punk.

Likewise, punk literature is most often distributed in the alternative press or zine world--often with regional distribution--at least until the mainstream embraces a figure such as Bukowski or Burroughs. Finally, punk art such as album covers and show posters are distributed in small independent record stores and on posters in the area of shows--the regional distribution system. This also explains why PISS will never be comprehensive or a full representation of punk.

PUNK INQUIRY & STUDY SITE (PISS) REGIONALISM

`PUNK INQUIRY & STUDY SITE (PISS) REGIONALISM`